Barry Alvarez: Big 10 expanded because we didn't want to lose Penn State to ACC

quote:Just when we thought Barry Alvarez had made enough headlines for one week, the Wisconsin athletic director/interim football coach gave us another delicious gem.

Speaking Friday to Wisconsin's athletic board, Alvarez said the Big Ten's recent additions of Maryland and Rutgers were motivated in part by the concern of losing Penn State to another conference. Alvarez didn't specify which league, but everyone knows it's the ACC.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

quote:"Jim [Delany] felt that someday, if we didn’t have anyone else in that corridor, someday it wouldn't make sense maybe for Penn State to be in our league. That they would go into a league somewhere on the east coast. By doing that, it keeps us in the northeast corridor."

Interesting stuff.

From talking with a Penn State trustee and others affiliated with the school, it doesn't sound like there was any imminent desire to leave the Big Ten. But the Penn State/ACC rumor was out there the week before the Big Ten added Maryland and Rutgers.

Delany wrote in a text-message to ESPN.com on Friday that he's not commenting on what others are saying about the Big Ten's expansion rationale. But I asked him Nov. 19 -- the day the Big Ten added Maryland -- whether there was any concern about losing teams.

"No, not in my view," Delany said. "But I do think that you need to build, and this build really solidifies the expansion we’ve done in the past. We've done one in the East, we've done one in the West [Nebraska in 2010]. I would say the driving force is demographics, but when you look at it, you can't help but think this is good for Penn State as well."

re: Barry Alvarez: Big 10 expanded because we didn't want to lose Penn State to ACC(Posted by trackfan on 12/11/12 at 11:26 am to Tigerfan56)

One of the biggest disadvantages of the Big Ten versus the SEC is that the athletic departments have so many more sports to support. For example, Ohio State has more than twice as many sports as LSU. Because of this, SEC schools don't have to spread their resources as thin as Big Ten schools, and can dominate, or at least be very competitive in the minor sports they do have (eg. track, baseball, softball, swimming, women's basketball, gymnastics, etc.).

re: Barry Alvarez: Big 10 expanded because we didn't want to lose Penn State to ACC(Posted by trackfan on 12/11/12 at 12:07 pm to SprintFun)

quote:OSU is not the norm though. We have the most varsity sports of any university in the country I think, by a large amount. I think most Big10 schools are in the 20ish range, which seems like the norm.

But they still have a lot more than LSU which has 16.

quote:I'll continue to say the worst thing about the Big10 is the equal revenue sharing. Indiana collects the same check that OSU does so where is the motivation to field a winning football team.

The SEC has the same problem with Vanderbilt but at least Indiana does some of the Big Ten's heavy lifting in men's basketball.

re: Barry Alvarez: Big 10 expanded because we didn't want to lose Penn State to ACC(Posted by molsusports on 12/11/12 at 12:41 pm to SprintFun)

quote:I'll continue to say the worst thing about the Big10 is the equal revenue sharing. Indiana collects the same check that OSU does so where is the motivation to field a winning football team.

I disagree with that - the revenue that is shared is only a small percentage of the total take for the athletic departments... but it makes a very big difference for the smaller schools which your bigger schools should want to keep viable (if not competitive)

You don't want to become Texas and steal nickels and dimes from your conference mates when you are making two or three times the total revenue they make anyway. That's penny wise and pound foolish.

re: Barry Alvarez: Big 10 expanded because we didn't want to lose Penn State to ACC(Posted by Bestbank Tiger on 12/11/12 at 7:30 pm to Fububutsy)

Why would the ACC want Penn State? They already have a team in Pennsylvania, and Penn State isn't going to bring anything to the table for a long time. They've always sucked in MBB and the football team is going to go way downhill when the sanctions deplete the roster.